


watch me, watch you

by doofusface



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hehehehehehehehe, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Overwatch - Freeform, Post Reveal, THIS WASNT SUPPOSED TO BE SAD, angst party!!!, heh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doofusface/pseuds/doofusface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talks about Overwatch mains turns into a serious one-on-one.</p><p>AKA Adrien can't be a tank and Marinette tells him why.</p><p>---<br/>so obviously if I have a fluff drabble series I best have an angst one amirite</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch me, watch you

“What do you mean you ‘main d.va’? You can't _‘main d.va’_!” Alya argues, shaking her friend by the shoulders. “The game isn't even _out_ yet!”

Marinette keeps her face scrunched up and resolute. This is a video game. This is _her_ video game. She can _feel_ it.

“I bet you'll main Tracer instead,” Adrien pipes up from beside her. “With Recall and everything.” He makes a vague gesture and a Chat-ish face that neatly reads _Lucky and all that_. Marinette scrunches up her face some more.

“Dibs Lucío,” Nino says, surprising no one.

“Surprising no one,” Alya mutters. He lifts his headphones just barely to indicate he'd heard, and puts on his trademark _Why Am I Even Here_ face.

(Alya responds with her _Because You Love Me (Read: Us)_ face. He puts his headphones back on to hide the blush.)

Marinette clears her throat. “I _am_ d.va.”

“No, you're Marinette,” Adrien quips, barely keeping the Chat side of himself in check. They're in his room, so it doesn't really matter how any of them act—it's a safe zone for their little squad of heroes, which, if the rumors about some Bee vigilante were true, is only going to grow.

(Somewhere at the back of his mind, he feels a tug to good ol’ Chloe, but can't figure out _why_.)

Marinette glares. “Ha-ha. I'm guessing you're going to get… what? Genji?”

“He does climb,” Adrien muses. Somewhere in the background, Alya is plopping onto his bed, tired of hearing about the game.

(To be fair, they've been at it for hours.)

“Nah, Adrien’s a total Reinhardt,” Nino says a little too loudly. He pauses, lowering the volume of his music. “Takes too many hits.”

Alya sits up, laughing. “Hey, maybe we should get you a shield for Christmas. Or a beetle kwami.”

Somewhere in the background, Plagg huffs.

Adrien rolls his eyes. “I’m not _that_ bad.”

“Yes, you are,” the three friends reply in varying loudness. Marinette’s voice cracks a little as she says it, which doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Bug?” the blond asks. “Everything okay?” He moves over, bounding over his bed to her side.

“Yes.” She says it with a grumble and without looking at him, so he knows it's kind of a lie. At the edge of his vision he can see Alya and Nino moving to the door.

It _clicks_ open, and _clicks_ closed.

“Hey, I’m—“

“You need to be more _careful_ ,” she snaps, turning to face him.

He's never seen her so mad at anyone other than Chloe/, and he's absolutely terrified that this time he's the cause of it.

“Marinette—“

“You—you _need_ to stop. Doing that,” she says cryptically, jaw clenched and eyes misty.

“Doing what?” he asks slowly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Marinette wipes at her eyes. “Stop trying to _protect_ me.”

“That's my _job_ , Bug,” Adrien replies softly, hesitantly reaching up his free hand to her other shoulder. “You know that.”

“We have more people helping now, Adrien!” she argues, her voice cracking a little more. “ _Please_. Just. Stop.”

He knows he shouldn’t be making jokes when she pushes him away. Because this is new terrain—Marinette as Ladybug always kept him at a distance, but in her civilian form, she’s grown to be the most welcoming person he knows. This is the first argument they’ve had post-revelation, and he’s suddenly very aware of how much he misses her being _right there_.

“I’m—Marinette, I’m your partner. I know you don’t need me to, but it’s—“ He stops and looks at her. His friend. His _best_ friend. Nothing happened when they found out, nothing crossed over into anything else. So friends. That’s what they were. “—I couldn’t handle it, Mari. If you got hurt.”

Her head’s down and his heart is racing. He remembers the walls, and he doesn’t want to go back to them. He wants his friend to be there, and be welcoming, and be his family.

“This isn’t—“ Marinette starts up abruptly, and Adrien’s sure she’s hiding the tears now. She clears her throat. “This isn’t a _game_ , Adrien. If _you_ —get hurt—and I _can’t_ … What then?”

She keeps her arms up, and hugs herself. She knows him best. She can imagine him with his furrowed brows and his wind-blown hair studying her. Waiting for an opening. Waiting for an invitation to comfort her.

She always liked that about her cat—he wasn’t afraid of waiting. And he was _loyal_.

Marinette looks at him dead in the eye. “I don’t want you to get hurt, okay? I don’t know what—“ She feels the tears falling a little bit, and her voice is cracking, but dangit, she’s _Ladybug_ , and she’s going to _finish this sentence_.

She takes a deep breath. “You’re my _best friend_. More than Alya—don’t try to argue it, it’s true. You know almost _everything_ about me, Adrien. _Both_ _sides_ of me. Not even Volpina could guess what I was going to do on my first day on the job.” Marinette looks up. She’s afraid if she keeps eye contact she’ll lose it. And she can’t. She needs him to know. “We’re—we’re yin and yang. What am I supposed to do if I lose _you_? I can’t handle that. I barely do as it is.”

When she finishes, she drops her gaze again. Her guard. And on cue, there he is, strong arms surrounding her in a tight hug. She sobs into his shirt, already thinking of excuses for this not-totally-random outburst. (Chat Noir had been… a little reckless the past few days.)

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I didn’t know,” the boy says. He’s got 19 years on him now, but he feels like a child in this moment. He hums in her ear—when did she get taller?—and rubs circles into her back. He’s debating giving her a (friendly!) kiss on the forehead when she pushes him back again.

Marinette had moved her arms from her side and was now clinging to the front of his shirt, and Adrien was relieved she was at least still close. Close enough to hold and comfort.

“ _Je t’adore_ ,” she whispers. It’s a friendly phrase. This is friendly.

“ _Je t’adore aussi_ ,” Adrien says, deciding he doesn’t really care anymore, and kisses her forehead.

Marinette is too afraid of losing him to keep this friendly. “ _Et… et je t’aime_ ,” she finishes, staring up at him.

Adrien chokes. He recovers quickly enough to at least smile. “ _Je t’aime aussi. Pour toujours, Marinette._ ”

She leans up to kiss him softly, and laughs when she’s back on the ground. He quirks a brow.

“You’d make a terrible Reinhart,” she says airily, wiping away the tear tracks.

Adrien balks. “ _Excusez-moi?!_ ”

“Tanks aren’t supposed to YOLO and die, kitty,” she whispers, sniffling. “And that’s always how you play.”

“Well, maybe _I’ll_ be d.va then. Double the chance.”

“You _wouldn’t_ ,” Marinette gasps, insulted. “What if there’s _comp_? Who will d.va during _comp_?!”

“May the fastest clicker win, My Lady,” he says with a wink and flourish, before running away.

 

(Alya and Nino come back to Marinette cornering him at the climbing wall, yelling about ‘having dibs’ and ‘taking back everything’ she said, ‘you are the WORST!’)

**Author's Note:**

> ye idek this got long


End file.
